Over the next few weeks, Santa Maria city staff members—including Police Chief Dan Macagni and Fire Chief Jeff Jones—are expected to hold a series of community presentations to discuss potential funding options for the city’s public safety departments.
Officials want to hear more from residents before recommending the City Council vote to place a quarter-cent sales tax initiative on the June 2012 ballot.
“Over the last 20 years, the state has taken $28.5 million from Santa Maria to deal with Sacramento’s budget mess,” City Manager Tim Ness said in a press release. “Coupled with the recent recession, this has forced us in recent years to cut public safety services, including seven police officers. At this time, there is simply not enough money to staff our new fire station.”
Fire Chief Jeffrey Jones reports that calls to the Santa Maria Fire Department have increased by 80 percent since 2001.
“The need in our community for additional fire services is so great that the city qualified for federal stimulus dollars to build the new fire station, at no cost to residents,” Jones said in the release.
According to city officials, it’s been difficult to maintain services because general fund revenues plunged nearly $10 million over the last four years, forcing city leaders to make numerous cuts to various programs.
Department operating budgets have been reduced across the board, some by as much as 20 percent, and close to 70 budgeted positions have either been eliminated or unfunded. Additionally, the city is now entering its third year of employee concessions and mandatory furloughs.
With this in mind, the city recently commissioned Godbe Research to conduct a survey to gauge voter opinions on a variety of issues, including the feasibility of a temporary quarter-cent sales tax initiative to pay for police positions and fully staff the new fire station on Suey Crossing Road.
The poll found that 71 percent of voters would support the temporary tax.
City staffers predict the tax would allow officials to hire nine additional firefighters to improve 911 response times and allow the police department to restore officers to the gang suppression unit and maintain neighborhood police patrols.
No specific dates had been announced for the meetings as of press time. City staffers plan to meet with local leaders and groups individually.
For more information, or to request a meeting, call the city at 925-0951, Ext. 372.
This article appears in Dec 8-15, 2011.